Uhuru Kenyatta Reopens Debate Over 2022 Election, Claims Raila Odinga Won

Former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has reignited debate over the 2022 presidential election, claiming that former Prime Minister Raila Odinga actually won the contest. Kenyatta reportedly asserted during a Jubilee Party National Executive Council meeting in Nairobi on May 25, 2026, arguing that Odinga had secured the necessary votes after Jubilee joined his presidential campaign.

He suggested that events after voting may have altered the outcome and called on anyone with knowledge of what allegedly happened to come forward, reopening a dispute that had already been taken to Kenya’s Supreme Court.

Odinga and other petitioners challenged William Ruto’s 2022 victory before the Supreme Court, alleging irregularities in the election process, including issues surrounding the use and transmission of electoral technology.

The Supreme Court ultimately upheld Ruto’s election as president, with the official tally recorded at 7,176,141 votes for Ruto (50.49%) and 6,942,930 for Odinga (48.85%). The court’s judgment addressed multiple challenges to the electoral process and found that the alleged irregularities had not met the threshold required to overturn the declared result.

Separately, Kenyan electoral law and previous court decisions have emphasised the importance of results declared at polling stations and recorded on the relevant physical result forms. Courts have held that electronically transmitted results are provisional and that, where discrepancies arise, the accurately recorded results declared at the polling station and constituency tallying centre prevail.

That legal principle was also relevant to the 2022 election litigation, making the integrity and verification of original polling-station declarations a recurring issue in Kenya’s electoral disputes.